Adjustments for All!

With our new addition coming along in a couple of months my furbabies, Rudy & Graham, are having to adjust quite a bit! I wonder if they can sense the baby in my belly. A quick internet search answered that question to be YES! They don’t understand that I’m “pregnant” per se, but they do know that something is different about me. They smell my new pheromones and sense my out of whack hormones. Each one is reacting very differently though. Rudy, my 2 year old Maltese, is behaving SO MUCH BETTER now! See for yourself in this video (if it stalls, refresh your browser and try again):

Isn’t he so well-behaved? I just love how he listens to me instantly and doesn’t jump up on my tummy. *lol* I really think Rudy couldn't care less that we’re having a baby…to him, it just means that he will eventually have a new playmate! However Graham, my 10 year old Toy Poodle, is taking things hard. He used to cuddle with me on the couch and never left my side, but now he just sulks in my bedroom by himself. I know some of that has to do with the fact that we don’t allow them on the couches anymore. For a couple of months now, Al has been covering the couches with this spiky material when we leave the house. They absolutely hate it! The goal is, by the time baby arrives, they will know that they are not allowed on the couches and therefore, we won’t have to worry about them scaring her by jumping up on them. Graham also is grumpy. In the cold months he wears a sweater to help keep him warm (hey, he’s only 7 pounds!). Al takes them on a walk when he gets home from work but refuses to be seen with a sweater-wearing toy poodle, so he always takes the sweater off before taking them out. Well, one day he hadn’t put Graham’s sweater back on (it is the sweetest thing to see Al dress Graham...he's so gentle!) by the time I got home so I tried to do it, as I have MANY times over the years. Well…I guess I didn't do it like Al does, because next thing I knew -- he bit me! It was just a nip, no damage, but the point is that he obviously didn’t want me to dress him and Al ended up doing it with no problems. Hmph. Anyhoo…we’re just thinking about how/when to introduce the dogs to our baby. I know that Graham LOVES babies but not so much kids (he's just afraid of them -- kids tend to be not so gentle). Hopefully K.Rae will be an animal lover like me because she'll always have a dog. Graham has about 3-4 good years left in him…by then we should be out of the condos and into a house where we’ll be able to get our favorite breed: a Doberman! Oh yeah, we like it 80’s style! *lol*